WWII Medic: Medical Research and Reproductions

Remember These Faces is a 1945 movie produced by the US to stimulate war bond sales. It features Navy Corpsman and Marine soldiers almost entirely. If you are interested in Navy medical or have a corpsman impression you absolutely must see this video. If you are interested in US WWII medicine, you absolutely must see this video. I think this covers just about everyone. Oh, and did I mention it was in color?

Special thanks to “Sgt Peter” at the Med-Dept forum for finding the video and sharing it with everyone.

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Transcript

I figured I’d transcribe the propaganda here both for Search Engine purposes and in case you couldn’t watch the video with sound for whatever reason.

This is the pattern — soften them up, then move in.
It’s time to launch the first wave.
There will be this wave and another and yet another. As many as are needed to take what we are after; and hold it.
It’s a violent wave. It has to be to do what has to be done.
It’s a precious wave, too. Rolled up in it is our knowledge, our toil, our treasure and the faces of our own — faces to remember.
A wave has a flow(?). A wave has an ebb.
This is the ebb. The bitter backwash of battle.
The price of an island is high. The wave rolls forward. The ebb flows back. But the tide continues.
*voice on radio* Red company, 500 yards inland, advancing steadily. Blue company, 520 yards inland, the enemy resists heavily, preparing to resume attack.
The fight for terrain is up forward. Back here is the fight to save life.
And where the fighter falls, there is the Corpsman.
A splintered ankle, ripe for gangrene is treated here, now. And the difference of a few hours will make the difference between a whole man and three-quarters of one.
The way is back now, toward a little less dust, a little less sun, a little more cleanliness, a little more comfort. But the japs are still down there and the fighting goes on.
Some left this beach not so many hours ago. They’ve set up an evacuation center here now.
Landing craft are standing by to get the wounded to the transport.
Everything that floats is used to take the wounded to the ships at anchor.
This is the ebb of the first wave.
This is the start of a long way back.
The second wave has begun to roll in now.
With the men and guns go plasma, bandages, drugs to kill the pain, clean water to slake the thirst.
A battalion aid center has been set-up halfway to the front — that much nearer the suffering.
They come, the suffering, on foot and on stretcher. Some know why they suffer, some know only that they suffer. These are the faces of those shocked in battle. This is combat fatigue.
Here is a jap hospital. We took it, we’ll make it our own, but the jap filth and foulness must be cleared away and buried.
With the fighting not a hundred yards away, the medics start setting up a laboratory, sprinkling down the chocking, infectious dust.
Where there was filth, there is now a Division hospital. Near enough to save and hour when an may mean a life. Here they can get to the shocked and the bleeding before the shocked are numbed permanently and a loss of blood ends in death.
They do what they can and more than seems possible. But no man can do all that he’d like.
To this man, his comrades in combat gave their blood and gave it un[?], gave it in abundance, they gave all they could — it was not enough.
By the second morning the wave has rolled eleven miles inland. The first jap airstrip is ours.
The evacuation of the wounded has begun.
The wave still rolls inland, the ebb still flows back. Back toward help, Back toward home.
Pontoon docks have been thrown up to speed and ease the task.
Speed and ease are relative, we know. An hour may not be long, but it’s a long time to suffer. A boat ride may be easy, but not when you’re in pain. But the Corpsman do all they can, as fast and as gently as they can.
The hospital ship. Now the jap planes and artillery have been eliminated, this floating hospital has been brought into the anchorage. A message of mercy from those at home.
This is the first leg on that long trip back.
Emergency cases are flown via naval air transport planes to hospitals thousands of miles away
No one who can be saved by speed is lost for lack of it.
And army planes are there to lend a hand when a hand is needed
And the hospital ship. It’s clean, and cool, and friendly there.
The hands that ease pain are deft and gentle. And all that’s ever been devised to speed a cure or save a life is there aboard. The gift of a people who cannot find enough to give to their sons in anguish.
And this is what a grateful nation has bought. Broken bodies are mended, shattered nerves are made whole, Ninety-eight out of every hundred wounded are kept alive. Ninety-eight out of every hundred. Thousands who might have died are kept alive.
Remember these faces — these are the faces of our sons who have done battle. Remember these faces, they are our responsibility. For them, we will by war bonds. For them we’ll keep on buying war bonds.

Interesting Stuff

Times are approximate

2:37

1903 Springfield, fixed bayonet

2:57

Carlisle bandage being applied

3:13

Stretcher being placed on a 1/4 ton (jeep)

4:15

Corpsman lays out medical equipment

4:49

Soldier is prepping a plasma kit for use

5:10

A plaster cast is being applied

7:54

Sulfanilamide powder (I can’t think of anything else it would be) is being sprinkled into a wound

8:31

Batallion Aid Station set up exactly the way the manual says to

10:43

Ether Anesthesia being applied

11:02

Whole blood being administered

There is lots to see in this film — these are just some of the things that I pulled out while watching through it once. Feel free to hit up the comments with other interesting observations.